Handball: Between party and endurance tests: Handball before “historic” weekend

A great jubilee party, a landmark Bundestag and four top-notch national games: German handball is facing special days.

Berlin (SID) Between a festive birthday party and important endurance tests – between a glorious past and a golden future? The German handball team is facing a weekend full of history. At least that’s how the vice-president of the association, Bob Hanning, put it.

While the DHB association wants to decide on a new structure at the DHB Bundestag, the handball family celebrates the 100th anniversary of its sport. At a gala reception in the distinguished Humboldt-Box in Berlin and with two doubles international matches of men and women.

The team of national coach Christian Prokop is the main focus. With the new edition of the European Championship finals against Spain (at that time 24:17) the Bad Boys start the project title defence – eleven weeks before the first German European Championship appearance against Montenegro on 13. January in Croatia.

“We are pleased to be able to compete against such a top nation,”said Prokop before the two test matches against the Iberians on Saturday (14.15 hrs/ZDF) in Magdeburg and on Sunday (14.30 hrs/ARD) in Berlin. Spain will go into the duels “with a lot of bite”.”That’s exactly what we need right now.”

Captain Uwe Gensheimer said:”Before the European Championship in Croatia, there won’t be many opportunities any more”:”That’s why we see this as a big part of the preparation” The DHB team will only meet again at the turn of the year.

And so Prokop, who will be contesting his first major tournament as DHB coach in Croatia, is hoping to gain further insights for his EC squad from the upcoming weekend. Of course, there are “important cornerstones” that you will certainly see again at the European Championship.

But Prokop is steaming up its players in the face of the power density “I have between 20 and 30 players at my disposal. If you take the external positions, for example, you are not seated there. For those who are not there, the door is still open,”said Dagur Sigurdsson, the 38-year-old successor of Iceland’s Dagur Sigurdsson.

His counterpart Michael Biegler sees things in a similar light. The duels between his ladies and vice world champion Netherlands, which took place directly after the men’s matches, are all about fine-tuning for the World Cup in his own country (1st place). till 17. December). Five weeks before the opening match against Cameroon, the German team, which is to fight for the medals at the home World Cup, also wants to advertise its own business once again.

But Prokop and Biegler will certainly also be looking into the capital on Saturday, at least with one eye. On the one hand, the DHB members are likely to re-elect the Presidium for a further four years in office. On the other hand, a new association structure is to be given a new direction. The restructuring process, which is known as “Perspective 2020+”, calls for a full-time Executive Board chaired by the current Secretary General Mark Schober.

“I hope that the Bundestag will send out a signal mood and that we will use a new structure to push ahead with the things we urgently need to do,”DHB Vice President Hanning told the SID and described the possible results of the Association’s Congress as “historic” and “groundbreaking”.